Laminated shingles are very well known and are shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,802 to Hannah et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,426,902 to Stahl et al. In laminated shingles, several layers of roofing material are laminated together (by a suitable adhesive) to provide an appearance characterized by variations in thickness, which appearance cannot readily be achieved by a single layer shingle. In addition, the different layers can be coated with different color surfacing material and can have cutouts located in various locations to provide an attractive appearance.
While multi-layer laminated shingles have been very well known for many years, they are costly to produce. One of the difficulties is that a number of separate operations must be performed to cutout the pieces which are to be laminated together and then to laminate the pieces together. Often these operations form a batch process rather than a continuous process, slowing the production line and increasing the cost of production.